Make Elon Musk the world’s richest man this Christmas, petition demands

A new global petition is seeking to make Elon Musk the “richest man in town” this Christmas by inviting him to gift 44% of the wealth he owns to the children of the world.¹

This would be enough to buy every living child under the age of 18 a $90 gift card – all 2.4 billion of them – and stop more than 100 million children from going hungry this Christmas, while keeping Elon Musk the richest man alive, the Tax Justice Network says.²

The petition states the signatories would also settle for a 2% wealth tax on the superrich.

Alex Cobham, chief executive at the Tax Justice Network, said:

“We’re obviously poking a little fun here but the point is to show how extreme the concentration of wealth has become. Depending on where you are in the world, if you earn the average wage, you’d need to work anywhere from 20 times to a thousand times longer than humans have existed to earn as much wealth as Elon Musk has collected.

“This sounds like it should be impossible but most people don’t realise that there are two types of wealth, earned wealth and collected wealth, and this is what we want to draw attention to. Earned wealth is when you get paid for what you do, so salaries and wages, and collected wealth is when you get paid for what you own, so dividends for owning stocks and rent money for owning real estate. Only collected wealth grows fast enough to create billionaires but most countries tax collected wealth a lot less than earned wealth. This is partly why billionaires tend to pay half the tax rates the rest of us pay. Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Ellison famously earn $1 salaries as CEOs, their fortunes are virtually entirely collected wealth, which gets special tax treatment.

“Our economies are supposed to let us earn the wealth we need to lead secure and comfortable lives, but most countries’ tax rules make it easier for the superrich to collect wealth than for the rest of us to earn it. This has let the superrich collect extreme wealth to the point of making our economies insecure, and making it barely pay to earn a living today.

“We now have plenty of evidence showing that extreme wealth shrinks economies, makes people poorer and threatens democracy.³ The best way to protect people, economies and planet from the harms of extreme wealth is to end the special tax treatment that collected wealth gets over earned wealth. We must tax extreme wealth more effectively to protect the earner way of life we all rely on. Whether you’re a wealth collector or a wealth earner, we all have an equal responsibility to pitch in our fair share.”

Countries can raise $2 trillion in tax a year by applying a 2% wealth tax on the richest 0.5% today.⁴ That’s enough public money to meet most countries’ climate finance needs, and leave billions to spare for local public services, the Tax Justice Network’s research shows.⁵

A recent G20 report declared an “inequality emergency” is underway that is threatening democracy and “generating many other problems in economies, societies, polities and the environment”.⁶ Last week, the World Inequality Report 2026 found that the top 0.001% – fewer than 60,000 multimillionaires – own 3 times more wealth than the entire bottom half of humanity combined. Within almost every region, the top 1% alone hold more wealth than the bottom 90% combined.⁷

Also last week, the EU Subcommittee on Tax Matters (FISC) heard from the EU Tax Observatory about its new briefing showing that where wealth taxes didn’t succeed in the past, the problem stemmed from loopholes, carveouts and weak ambitions baked into regulations.⁸ The EU Tax Observatory identified five strategies for the 21st century for taxing the superrich.

The recently launched petition, which the Tax Justice Network is calling a “Christmas card” to Elon Musks, is live on change.org.

-ENDS-

Petition link

Notes to Editor

1. The recently launched petition is online here.
2. The wealth Elon Musk owns stands at $494.5 billion, according to Forbes’ Real Time Billionaire List, accessed on 11 December 2025. There are more than 2.4 billion children in the world under the age of 18, according to the United Nations. Buying every child a $90 gift card would come to a total of $216.8 billion. Subtracting this sum from Elon Musk’s reported $494.5 billion, for illustrative purposes, would leaved Elon with $277.7 billion. That’s enough to keep Elon Musk at the top of list Forbes’ billionaire list in first place, just above Larry Ellison, who’s wealth stood at $276.3 billion according to Forbes, accessed on 11 December 2025.
3. Research shows large rise in wealth among the 1% in the US over the past 40 years did not lead to more investments, and instead resulted in dissaving among non-rich households. Researchalso shows that “a large rise in inequality generates a saving glut of the rich, which can push an economy into a debt trap characterized by low interest rates, high debt levels, and output below potential”. Indebtedness of non-wealthy households brought on by extreme wealth of the richest households brings about lower productivity. Conversely, another study found that wealth taxes resulted in more investments. A recent G20 report declared an “inequality emergency” is underway that is threatening democracy.
4. See the Tax Justice Network’s research on how much tax every country can raise from a wealth tax based on simplified version of Spain’s successful wealth tax.
5. See the Tax Justice Network’s research on how tax can help meet countries’ climate finance needs.
6. See the G20’s recent report here.
7. Read the World Inequality Lab’s report here.
8. What the EU FISC public hearing here and read the EU Tax Observatory’s report here.